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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26808517">Let's Hang Out Sometime</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrion_CarryOn/pseuds/Carrion_CarryOn'>Carrion_CarryOn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood, Blood and Injury, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scars, Torture, Whumptober 2020, Xenophobia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:41:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>878</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26808517</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrion_CarryOn/pseuds/Carrion_CarryOn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Kale Badri, or SK-1132 awakens in an unknown place, surrounded by unfamiliar faces. She won't talk, due to her hatred of the artificial vocoder/voice which she's lived with for years now, following the battle which also ended her service in the Empire. What happens when talking with the vocoder isn't even an option anymore?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>None</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1955218</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Let's Hang Out Sometime</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So, I wanted to get back into the swing of writing, and I picked up on Whumptober2020's (the official Tumblr page's) prompt list and got to it!<br/>Also posted this on my Tumblr page, here:<br/>https://horsefeathears.tumblr.com/post/630896290154332160/whumptober-2020-lets-hang-out-sometime</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kale Badri, formerly SK-1132, has patterns for nearly everything she does. It makes life that much simpler. Less to worry about, little to occupy her mind, allowing her to focus properly. But perhaps such habits are potentially as debilitating as they are useful. It all depends on circumstance. Now, waking to an unknown room and surrounded by unpleasant, leering faces, Kale’s mind is reeling.</p>
<p>What had she done, or failed to do, to end up like this? Was there some kind of warning she hadn’t caught? Why are they upside down? And why does her head hurt?</p>
<p>Answers to the latter most questions become clear together. Or, rather, clear through just how <em>unlcear </em>her mind is. It feels like she’d been tied to the back of a gualaar-drawn cart and her head slammed against every rock on an uphill gallop.</p>
<p>Kale realizes, belatedly, that it is <em>she</em> who’s upside down. That, at least, explains why her head is aching so. She wants to ask the blurring faces what they want, but that entails talking. Just the thought causes her lips to curl into a grimace. Even now, the artificial vocoder nests uncomfortably at the front of her throat, peering out through ropey scars. The metal is still unnatural, years of its presence having done little to whet her disdain for the device.</p>
<p>One of the numerous blurred presences reaches forward a three-fingered, clawed hand, abruptly yanking Kale from her pain-hazed stupor. She glares as best she can, but there’s the feeling of helplessness sinking into her stomach. Hanging upside down, arms shackled behind her back, head concussed, there is no chance of fighting back. The hand is cold and scaly. Feeling it against her warm cheek fills her with disgust. The alien says something in a language she does not know. Kale endeavors to tilt her face away from the grasping hand. She does not succeed.</p>
<p>The other hand comes into her view, along with the owner. They have a beige-colored, scaled hide and piercing red eyes. Their snout is blunted, but filled with needle-sharp teeth. Two nostrils flare simultaneously to drink in her scent. Heavily ridged brows stiffen and draw slightly together, giving an impression of interest. The ridges follow into a blunted crown of backward-pointing horns. Eve with her stunted knowledge of mid- and outer-rim species, Kale recognized the being. Trandoshan.</p>
<p>They spoke again, hissing and screeching, and turned to chatter at the surrounding group. Kale still had no way of knowing what was said, but judging by the backwards shuffling, she guessed they wanted space.</p>
<p>Sharp claws rake through her black, windswept hair in a manner she might have described as reverent, were such creatures capable of feeling such.</p>
<p>Suddenly, she could hear Ruse Get’al in her mind. It was the same chastisement she’d heard time and again after joining the Mandalorian’s crew. <b><em>Kale, remember, there are stereotypes and there are exceptions. Some are correct, some are anything but</em></b>. Alright, so perhaps the lizards are capable of something akin to reverence, but she still find the thought repugnant.</p>
<p>The left hand stays curled in her short hair whilst the right moves to her face. It traces strange patterns along her cheek, pricking the tanned skin and drawing droplets of blood. Red eyes meet deep-set, dark brown. Kale hisses in a breath through clenched teeth. The same right hand travels upward to the vocoder she’d so often cursed. A lance of fear struck through Kale, chilling her veins, when the hand gripped - hard. The left joined the right, resting steadily on her neck.</p>
<p>Kale felt a claw sink slowly into her flesh. With great precision she wouldn’t think possible, it drew towards her chin, easily sliding through vulnerable tissue. Try as she did, Kale couldn’t hold back a strangled cry of pain. It’s worse than first having her throat sliced in ambush all that time ago. The sound is ugly, laced with static and spittle. Her blood is warm as the rivulets split around her chin and dribble into her ears.</p>
<p>There is the loud, thumping rhythm of a heart infected with adrenaline, yet having nothing to do. There is no way to ease the pain she feels, no escape. The rest are watching her, and watching the Trandoshan. Kark stereotypes and kark exceptions - if Kale escapes with her life, she’s going to hunt down and mangle every. Single. One.</p>
<p>Unpleasant, worse than the initial cuts, is the tugging that follows. Agonizingly slow, the vocoder is slipped free of her flesh. She doesn’t know why this is happening, cannot understand what the damned lizard is saying, all she knows is it hurts. The fresh slice runs perpendicular to the old scars. It had cut through those, too, as simple as a vibroblade through armor.</p>
<p>Now, without a voice, Kale realizes she wants more than ever to be able to scream. She wants to shout at them to stop, beg, even. Her pride is hurt, but her body is hurting worse. Being divorced from her words, she has a renewed sense that she cannot live without a voice. The sounds which tear from her gaping mouth aren’t even human anymore. She doesn’t know what they are.</p>
<p><b><em>Help,</em></b> Kale thinks, screams to no one. <b><em>Help! Help me, please!</em></b></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Lemme know if anything else needs to be tagged. Don't feel shy to comment or leave kudos, either. If you have any suggestions, let me hear them; I'm always looking to be a better writer.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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